Look at any news publication around the country right now, and you’ll see headlines declaring that energy prices are up everywhere. Not only that, but people are seeing record-setting utility bills.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to slash energy bills in half. Instead, nine months into his presidency, families are facing greater financial hardship than a year ago. 

It’s one thing for Trump to gamble and fail at personal business ventures, but he’s playing with our dollars. Thanks to his policies, energy costs are rising at twice the rate of inflation. Let’s dive into some of the ways Trump is making life more expensive for us all.

Trump’s Obsession with Fossil Fuels Comes at Our Expense

We know from Trump’s first presidency that he’s a friend to the fossil fuel industry. Now, that friendship has turned into an obsession. On Trump’s first day in office, he declared a “national energy emergency” and signed an executive order promising to “unleash American energy”. What does he have to show for it? Broken promises and higher bills. 

By forcing the nation to cater to the fossil fuel industry, he’s putting us in an increasingly hard financial position. Other Trump policies are adding more fuel to the fire. Here are some of his most egregious moves:

1. Fast-tracking liquefied natural gas projects

Exporting liquified natural gas (LNG) makes U.S. energy prices vulnerable to volatile changes in the global market. This will drive up energy prices here at home.

The natural gas industry, especially, has positioned itself as affordable. Yet these promises have proved empty. For example, Pennsylvania is the second-largest gas producer in the country, but that has failed to translate into lower energy bills for residents.

With Trump’s support of gas infrastructure, from LNG terminals to pipelines, he’s locking us into a volatile and expensive energy source.

2. Attempting to revive ugly, dirty coal

The United States began phasing out coal because it’s incredibly polluting, bad for miners’ health, and expensive. Trump seems to think that, if you say a thing often enough, it will eventually come true. But for “clean, beautiful coal”, it simply will never exist.

By forcing aging coal power plants to stay open, Trump is actually costing taxpayers $3-6 billion per year. And by one analysis, replacing almost every coal plant with solar and wind energy generation would be both cost-effective and save people big in the long run.

3. Accelerating the data center boom

From Alabama to California, Pennsylvania to Texas, communities around the country are facing proposed data centers that threaten grid instability and high electricity prices.

Instead of addressing these concerns and their tangible harms, the Trump administration has moved to fast-track the build-out of these energy-greedy data centers. Ratepayers in seven states already paid $4.4 billion more on their bills last year to bring data centers online, before this year’s boom.

More data centers demand more energy to power them — and that’s mainly coming from cost-volatile fossil fuels. With Trump’s help, Big Tech companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon get to profit off our land and resources while polluting our communities.

4. Cutting energy affordability programs

Federal programs help millions of families keep the lights on and regulate a home’s temperature — which is evermore critical as fossil-fueled climate change makes summers hotter and winters colder.

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance program (LIHEAP) provides assistance to families to pay their heating and cooling bills. As volatile gas prices make energy bills jump — thanks to things like LNG and increased fossil fuel production — affordability programs are even more important.

Instead of securing people’s safety, Trump has fired all staff running LIHEAP, effectively freezing assistance. Trampling over affordability programs will have real, terrible consequences. In one Arizona county, some 400 people may have died as a result of extreme heat this past summer.

As climate-warming emissions cause heat to intensify, the cost of electricity and air conditioning rise higher, causing more people to die — with a disproportionate impact on Indigenous, Black, and Brown communities. 

Tossing Renewables While Keeping Fossil Fuels Is Costing Us

Trump’s senseless war on solar and wind is costing us. 

Don’t be fooled — renewables are not to blame for rising electricity bills. Study after study has confirmed that energy generated from wind and solar is cheaper than that from fossil fuels, even without subsidies. Despite this, Trump is positioning fossil fuels as the only hope for our energy future. 

While Trump’s predecessor was no climate champion, Joe Biden set the stage for the recent boom of solar and wind. So far, the industry is holding strong, but progress is set to stall as tax credits for renewable projects expire at the end of this year. What will result is higher bills and more pollution. 

Support for clean energy leads to lower energy costs, lower healthcare costs from less pollution, and fewer costly climate disasters and billion-dollar recovery and adaptation bills. This especially benefits low-income, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities that have borne the brunt of these costs exacted by fossil fuels.

Supporting renewables also levels the playing field against fossil fuels, which have been ludicrously subsidized for decades. The fossil fuel industry receives $760 billion annually through subsidies, tax breaks, and other factors. Direct government subsidies account for $10-$52 billion per year. 

Ironically, Energy Czar Chris Wright has said that the United States must stop subsidizing solar and wind because it drives up costs. He must have gotten his wires crossed, because that’s exactly what has happened with fossil fuels — lots of subsidies, higher energy prices for us. But what else do you expect from a fossil fuel CEO-turned Department of Energy Secretary? 

If Trump valued affordable energy, public health, or the environment, he’d support renewables. Instead, his energy policies prioritize profits for his fossil fuel industry buddies.

Trump’s Energy Policies Hurt Everyone, Including His Supporters

Unfortunately, Trump has made political retaliation a hallmark of his second administration. In the early days of October’s government shutdown, Trump, Energy Czar Wright, and Russel Vought “of Project 2025 fame” were giddy to slash over $7.5 billion in green energy projects, all in states that voted for his opponent Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. 

While the cancellations may be meant to punish Trump’s perceived enemies, the harm will reach his supporters and their families, too. Of the terminated grants and projects, 26 grants were intended to improve electricity grid resilience and lower energy costs, impacting dozens of Republican districts. 

Energy markets and grids know no political affiliation. Trump’s cancellation impacts cannot be isolated to a single state or region, and instead will produce a ripple effect across the country.

Similarly, his war on solar and wind is hitting his supporters hard. His cuts of Inflation Reduction Act clean energy projects are slashing jobs and impacting local economies for many in his base. 

If our president can’t be a president to all and put our economic well-being ahead of his own, that should set alarm bells off for everyone in the country. 

Join Our Fight For Affordable Energy!

It turns out that a pro-business approach to a country built on the backs of the working class and families is bad for everyone. While our bills go up, Trump is playing golf, earning billions from his meme coin, and undermining democracy and our futures. 

We know what makes our energy more reliable and affordable: going green and transitioning to renewables like solar and wind. In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, Trump is just adding avoidable, unnecessary costs by doubling down on fossil fuels. He is doing incredible damage to our economy and our wallets.

It’s more important than ever to tackle rising costs and fossil fuel dependence in the age of Trump. That’s why Food & Watch is working against fossil-fueled rate hikes in Florida; stopping dirty, expensive pipelines in New York; fighting data centers in Pennsylvania; and more. By coming together and organizing to win real improvements in our lives, we are far from powerless in the face of Trump’s policies.